Social media is obviously an important part of your marketing mix. It’s a great way to extend the reach of your brand, find new customers, and increase revenue for your business, but how do you grow your audience to really make an impact with social media? Here are 8 basic tips to help you get started.
1. Your Profile
Complete your Twitter profile with as much detail as possible. Upload a photo that clearly represents your brand, whether it’s a photo of yourself or your company’s logo. Provide a short description that clearly describes your business and the problem your business is solving. Include a link to your website so others can learn more about your business.
2. Follow Others
It sounds simple and it is. Follow others who you believe would be interested in your business and other businesses who provide products or services that are complementary to what you are offering.
3. Post Consistently
Many who are getting started in social media marketing look at it as passive channel or something they’ll do after they have done other “more important” things in marketing or for their business. Social media is different than other marketing channels. It’s a conversation with your current and potential customers, current and potential employees, or even investors in your business. It’s different than advertising where you publish an ad, see if it attracts customers, tweak the ad, and repeat -hoping the results improve over time. Social media is different and requires consistent and constant participation.
4. It’s Not Just About You
There are businesses who do a great job at engaging their audiences via social media and there are those that stink at it. The ones that need help typically fail to realize that social media isn’t just about their business. They only post offers and promotions for their business, they do not reply to their followers in a timely manner, if at all, and rarely offer any sort of customer support via social media. To grow your followers you must engage with them and speak to them. If someone mentions your brand, reach out to them to say “thanks”. If someone has a question, answer it out in the open via social media, chances are others have the same question. It’s ok to post promotions and offers in order to get followers to take an action however this shouldn’t be the primary goal for your social media presence.
5. Quality Content
Make sure that any content you write is high-quality. On the surface, check for spelling and grammatical errors. Provide an interesting point-of-view, something that’s unique, or content that you feel with truly benefit your readers. If you provide quality content that is interesting and beneficial for your readers they will share it with others, which only helps to extend the reach for your business via social media and increase the number of followers for your brand. Remember, give people a REASON to follow you.
6. Leverage Your Website
Twitter makes it very easy to add a widget to your website that pulls in your recent tweets along with a link where visitors can click to follow you on Twitter. Don’t forget to display this prominently on your website to make it simple for visitors to follow you on Twitter. If you have an email newsletter that you send regularly be sure to also include a link to your Twitter account in every issue.
7. Contests and Promotions
Another great way to increase followers is to run a contest. Run a promotion and make it a requirement that participants must follow your business on Twitter for a chance to win. Leverage your website, email newsletter, or even banner ads to get the word out about your contest.
8. Include Your Twitter Handle in Your Email Signature
You probably have an email signature that includes your name, title, and contact information, but this is also a great place to include your Twitter handle. Along the same line, also be sure to include your Twitter handle on your business cards and any other printed marketing materials, in addition to your contact information at the end of presentations and/or webinars, and within any press releases.
These are eight tips to help you increase the number of Twitter followers for your business. Remember, while it’s important to increase the number of people who are following you, the quality of your followers is even more important. You want an engaged audience who are true fans of your business and the products you provide. No competitor can compete with you if you have a large, loyal, and engaged audience. Focus on providing value to others and helping them accomplish their goals and you’ll see you followers, and business, grow.
